every-single-day

A new venue for my affection...

If there was one thing I learned while growing up, verbalize your love freely and often, you may not get the chance again and would not want to regret such a thing.
And then of course I learned to watch my connections cyclically. It feels spiritual to experience life in this manner. to watch connections evolve.
A few months back, before moving to Arizona I completed a piece which I now call L’existence (not seen in a major venue and so, not on my web site yet). I show a detail shot here. So yesterday we went to a major chain box store and bought a hummingbird feeder. See where I am going?

David made the nectar when we got home, mounted a cup hook, and before climbing off the ladder to hang the feeder, got buzzed.
I love the Cornell Ornithology web site. It is detailed and fun. It has audio recordings of each birds call or sound, so if you click here, you'll find an audio file just below the photograph of the bird. Click it and you will hear what we hear. They love the feeder and didn't take any time to settle into it. They are territorial, tiny and a joy to watch.
I love hummingbirds.

My batteries died...

I don't post every-single-day, normally I follow my emotional moods and creative input. If the day isn't up to par, no post. Yesterday I'd wanted to post but alas, my camera batteries pooped out. Murphy's Law.

10 yards of indigo dyed eyelet. Hmmm.... wonder what I am planning? Wouldn't you like to know.

Jane W. has asked about progress on the Western Bluebird piece. I have not finished it, though I am still working on it. To paint this piece I freezer paper resisted the bird shape and painted the background. Then I painted the bird in dye, acrylic paint and dye sticks.
The quilting is coming along nicely. I will give an overall image when I am further toward being finished.

My pal in all things birdy has put a song on her blog and given the overall appearance of the place an updo. She has a new WIP, too. Check it out.

Claire at Little Fish Creations has been doing some GREAT work in her journal. I love to see what other people do in thier journals, so maybe you will too.

Deborah brought up this book, which I think I need to read because this is the second time in 3 days that it has come up.

So there you have it. Even if my batteries died, my life kept going.

The Roller Coaster Called Melly T

Ok. So I will preface this whole post with the fact that this week, unawares, I was PMS. Let me put it all out there, K?
Birding class, fun, exciting, healthy. Good.
Later I asked David if I should go ahead and check out info on building our own Western Bluebird House. In usual fashion, I gather all the info I could possibly need and also find an email list, that I won't link to.
I joined the list and got bombarded with emails about House Sparrow elimination; not what I was counting on or prepared for, think graphic depictions of acts intolerable. Apparently House Sparrows, introduced in 1850 or 1851 have taken over the U.S. and are booting out native species or more accurately for the purpose of this post, Bluebirds. Now Bluebirds are making a resurgence in the U.S. due to diligent care and the use of strategically placed man-made housing specific to Bluebird needs.
So folks have taken it even further and have begun to eliminate House Sparrows because they are aggressive and invasive and fight for the housing provided to the Bluebirds, which are b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l, by the way.
Little darlings.
So without looking at my book to make sure that I am not feeding House Sparrows (very ignorant of me), I purchase new bird food hoping that perhaps I could disuade the 'house sparrows' with the different type of feed.
I go to the Post Office and park, wanting to gather my mail and go home. On the side walk near the car? A House Sparrow wing. Don't know how it got there or what happened. I start blubbering.
Downtown.
Then I go home to look up House Sparrows. I am not feeding House Sparrows. I am feeding Pine Siskin, Lesser Goldfinch and Song Sparrow (to the best of my ability).
Boy did I throw myself for a loop with that one. Needless to say, I am no longer on the list, I will feed whomever comes and I won't be eliminating anyone for a human error 150 years in the past. I mean really, are humans invasive or what? Global warming? No eliminating us, now. Right?
And if I have any Bluebird fanatics reading this post? It is a free country. I traumatized myself reading into this whole matter, and I don't want to hear anymore about it.

hooo. That right there is my high horse. My very own salt box. F'getaboudit.

Today after birding field trip we went to the Northern Arizona Book Festival, where we heard readings and performances by Matthew Henry Hall, really well read in a variety of voices, Billy Collins funny as hell (a poet), Lemony Snicket who did this to-die-for performance which made me want to read every book. As it should be.

We are going to the Canyon tomorrow. Self Love and Care.

Oh and Jane? I will post or write about the Bluebird piece and the gingko, or however that is spelled.

Two in One Day!

I quit the job today. I feel a lightness of heart and mind. It was hard to get myself to the place where quitting was OK.
So I stayed home and played cloth all day.

Arrow realized that my door was open and came in. He discovered that he too is a bird watching fanatic. I love him so much.
The birds are flying into the window, so I cut branches out of black crepe paper. It helps but does not do the whole job.
I got an email from a woman who is going to take my dye class here in July. My first MAJOR teaching gig. Week long and ALL! I am so excited about it. And to have been contacted by someone I do not know is super exciting. I hope it fills up!

quiet

I saw this over at My Life in Stitches and had to try it. I think it is fun. Try it yourself.

I have been quiet. These have been some formitive days. I have decided to quit my job, the hours were beyond my ability to cope. I will deal with it today. I have begun to take back my thoughts and approach on life and work out here. I am going to look into teaching locally and nationally, focus on getting my art seen, work on starting a business with a local friend and ground and center.
Moving across country is like forging my personality into new dimensions. It hurts, is incredibly exciting and very tiring. I miss my peeps back east while enjoying my new peeps here. Push and Pull.

David and I have been going on our birding field trips. Last week we saw a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Now when you click over to the site that has a photo of him, don't be fooled. This little guy has a gem of a ruby spot on the back of his head. He flitters and flicks. I am liking the little fly-eatters!
We also saw a Common Yellowthroat. Boy does that bird blast you with color! But the photos at the lab do the birds no justice.
This week we will drive an hour south of here and the list we may be able to see is exciting.
Sadly this will be our last trip. It is a short and sweet class.

Mail Treasure Hunts...

Today was a day of extreme mailbox fun!
This weekend we got a mysterious notification in our post office box. It seems the post office is recycling notification cards. The card in question had several black marker cross-outs and was not legible in the least. But it did tell us to go o the front desk to pick up our mail.

Thinking the package was official because it doesn't usually work quite this way, David got to the P.O. Box early and picked up this housewarming gift(!!!), given by Deb Lacativa. It is beautiful. My favorite part is how the backing barely shows on the front edge of the piece accentuating the red/fuchsia highlights in the central portion. Just scrumptious! The border is stitched in metallic thread and this photo does it no justice.
And the sweetest part? The letter was addressed to both of us.
Thank you Deb!!!

Then later in the day I went to the P.O. and picked up a package from the J-miester, which had a tiny letter, some great stuff and some... fantastic cookies. She'd confused me with someone who thought that recipe was too sweet. Wrong-o.
I wish I were gluttonous enough to eat the entire package in one sitting.

Then my Man picked me up from work after receiving a pair of binoculars he'd bought for our birding endeavors.

Lisa Chipetine suggested I read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. It is fantastic.

I feel the love!

Beginnings

It is ever so evident that I need to be doing my art and selling my stuff. Today, just to see if I could do it, I set the task of creating a scarf that could accessorize with most anything. The images below are the same scarf, photographed on a black background:

and a white background:

Same scarf. Different backgrounds. This is the soft 'feminine' idea of a scarf. I don't know if it needs more. I don't think so. Going to sleep on it though.
This is printed on silk gauze. 36'X42".
I could just sell it as cloth too.

I want to fall asleep, I fell asleep while watching a video and now, I just want to continue with that idea, it is a good one.

David and I have been taking a beginner's birding class with the NAZAS. We went on our first field trip yesterday, to the Kachina Wetlands. I fell in love with the Black Phoebe. David fell in love with the Yellow-headed Blackbird, also very pretty. The Red-winged Blackbird has a yellow epaulet here, back east, I don't think so. Cornell says some subspecies do not have the yellow.
I have a soft spot for passerines.
We saw lots of ducks! American Coot, Red-headed Duck, Ring-necked Duck (whose ring is really on it's beak), Cinnamon Teal just to name a few.
As a prize I took home what I think is a Violet-green Swallow feather.

Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So here is an update of the bluebird.

and a detail:

Today I calmly, played, painted, ordered supplies and enjoyed myself. I fed my soul.
Thank you, Great Goddess! Thank you for this reconnection to the place where my heart heals, soars, becomes one with the reality of living fully.

Because of Jane's post, I included an image of both the painting on cloth and its journal inspiration. The cloth painting is done in Procion MX dye, acrylic paint, paint sticks and freezer paper screenprint and wheat paste screen print on mercerized cotton broadcloth.
I hope like hell that I used enough soda ash to fix this piece. I have sprayed additional soda ash over the entire surface in the hope of it truely fixing. I like this piece alot.
I want it to work.

Sometimes I convince myself that I cannot paint or that I can't paint realistically. Or something. I get wierded out. I am not sure if I think that painting on cloth isn't painting or if I just psych myself out, feeling intimidated about the idea of painting. I need to redefine that old tape to say, "Yup, I can paint."

Breath...

This week the turkeys have been getting me down. Tuesday I identified that nothing was going my way because I really haven't made anything for months. I swear it sorta feels like perhaps I lost my edge.
I admit, I have been working in my journals, drawing, painting, collage. But that does not carry the same sort of satisfaction as working with cloth. Dyeing cloth, creating transparent layers with silks and cottons, sewing the layers together and working through creative problems? That soothes me.
My studio is just about functional. The work is going more slowly than I had hoped, but the the quality of the work is good. As soon as the closet doors are installed I will be cooking with gas! Then I will be able to truely unpack, store my dress making fabrics, find some lost items.
But while that is happening, I at least have the ability to play with dye. So here is some cloth, drip drying from its soda ash soak. Here in Arizona it dries in about 20 minutes, it's so dry. I wonder how it will affect the batching of painted cloth.

I don't know if this piece will work out. I had to paint something while the other cloth was soaking. I think I packed some PFD cloth, but I also know I washed out some other cloth that had been sitting in my damp basement studio back east. So while painting with thickened dye on this piece, I mixed some soda ash into the dye; hopefully it will work out because I like it so far.
I have a full day of dyeing ahead of me tomorrow. I think I will paint the bird realistically and create some organza overlay to play with. I think the Mountain Bluebird should be surrounded by thistle silhouettes. And I want to play with working the organza in a different manner. We'll see. I will post more photos.

I have been getting great feedback on my magazine article! Thank you all!
Deborah B said, "I just finished reading your article in QA -- studying it actually. I was constantly flipping back and forth between the pages to compare the different stages of the project. Most excellent."
And boy did I need these kind words just when they arrived!
Plain Jane LaFazio said, "I LOVED your article in the recent quilting arts and I was so inspired by it."
Again! I really needed these words too!
I am amazed that I was able to write this article! I made the three step outs prior to moving and wrote the article afterward. I bet I already stated this.